Sitaaray, Covent Garden

Hello there!

This month’s Meal Club restaurant has been on the list for a while and was an early choice for the big birthday bash in early March. Thankfully Sitaaray’s TopTable offer seems to be a permanent fixture so we obviously went for it. We were:

James
Laura (guest!)
Linz
Pete
Sam
Vicki

We met beforehand and the burlesque themed Cellar Door bar in Aldwych which is still relatively new. Very decadent and plush with a happy-hour cocktail menu to boot. Decent quality too. Laura’s vodka, lime and lemonade avoided the typical bar error of overloading it with cheapo lime cordial. James, meanwhile, was busying himself sipping his usual whiskey sour while absent-mindedly flicking peanuts into Vicki’s open handbag. His night took a turn for the worse when he regaled me and Laura with a story of such poor quality I swear I could literally smell a bit of poo. This may have been the remnants of the bar’s former life as a toilet, but given that he was telling us the story as part of a wider “I told this story before and no one liked it” anecdote, we felt justified in shouting him down. Poor work James. Must do better next time.

Anyway, on to the restaurant. Usually the phrase “Indian restaurant in Covent Garden” conjures imagery of bog standard slop with greasy poppadums etc… Not this place. It’s a cracking little place with plenty of character. It has an overall Bollywood theme with film excerpts (the songs obviously) being played on numerous flatscreens while photos of Bollywood stars look on from the walls. Our little booth area was blessed with the finest array of moustaches this side of Bangalore. Sam fancied quite a few of them worryingly. One of them was “built like a shit brickhouse”.

I’ve been asked to mention the nice table design. It was nice. There.

The deal was £15 for unlimited kebabs and curries. They brought about 5 or 6 courses in all (mostly kebabs, one broccoli dish – WTF??). Chicken, lamb and fish (for the ‘pescatarians’) were all very good. I didn’t think they were that spicy but then I am extremely hard. The dahl tasted like oxtail soup. There’s not really much else to say about the food other than it was good quality and superb value for money when you think about it. After the curry we were asked if we wanted any more dishes but we were stuffed.

We had a quick chat about France and which games we were going to bring. Sam will “Fucking slap a chow” if people don’t play games and take it seriously. I’ve played scrabble with her before. I know from experience that the girl likes the games and the girl likes to win dammit! I reckon I could take her down on trivial pursuit though. We also voted Laura into Meal Club! (this despite James' protestations that it would be funnier if we all abstained on the vote).

And that’s about it. Really good place, strong recommendation. It worked about about £25 each including wine.